Greatest taunt fail of all time and just how much Mikey loves longform

I've become addicted to longform.org. It's a website that links to various kewl current and past longform articles—i.e. 1000 word or more pieces—collated from across the web from publishers and magazines such as Rolling Stone, Slate, Salon, The New Yorker, and Mother Jones. Hell—even Wikipedia articles get a shout-out. The site is designed so you can readily download the articles into various formats for saving on devices or specific formats but I just use it for the link function, skipping across to articles of interest as I delve into it. 

Longform was a (god)send (1) on the trip to my hometown. I was able to surf through the site late at night whilst on a mattress on the floor and unable to sleep. Or dial up an article into Safari on my loaner phone, switch to Airplane mode whilst back in the hospital (where theBoy had alas had to go to due to breathing difficulties on the trip up) and have it ready to read for when theBoy was resting.

Recently, via Longform, I read this Rolling Stone article about hazing at Dartmouth, a venerable ivy league school in the US (i.e. a Snooty McSnoot factory). The article focuses on the story of one student, a victim and perpetrator both, breaking the Omerta about frat house life. Stuff how they had as pledges had to eat  '... vomulets...', forcing those coming behind them to do the same when they were confirmed '...brothers...' 

Yes, a vomulet is as bad as it sounds.

Anyway, whilst cruising through the article I came across the part where they talk about the conservative nature of the school.

Dartmouth was one of the last of the Ivies to admit women, in 1972, and only in the face of fierce resistance from alumni. In 1986, conservative students armed with sledgehammers attacked a village of symbolic shanties erected on campus to protest South African apartheid. More recently, students assailed members of an Occupy vigil at Dartmouth, heckling them with cries of "Faggots! Occupy my asshole!"

Just how fucking awesome is that taunt?

I bet they totally chanted it over and over without at all realising the overt invitation they had presented to their opponents to have at their likely lily-white rectums with a mighty fury.

Gold, Jerry. Gold! (2)

(1) I put (god) in parenthesis to indicate the expression as opposed to a stated belief in a bearded sky father. But rock on my bearded sky father believing brothers and sisters, I envy your faith. Plus your loving, supporting communities. 

(2) Admit it Cass (slash) GametesRhyme! You thought that was funny!

And ... scene

All this time I thought 'And ... scene' was in fact 'End ... scene'. Lucky they sound similar.

It feels like that time I got sprung saying hallycon all over again...

Sorry, Pete

A new character got introduced tonight—Pete the Rhino. On a whim I decided Humpty and Stumpty were visiting him in Africa. theBoy turned up in his great big silvery robot car to say hi and a frightened Pete charged into him. But alas for Pete theBoy's robot car was '... too tough!...' and Pete got a crack in his horn.

He went to see the horn doctor, a giraffe and thus clearly a rip off of Melman from Madagascar 2, and during the consult theBoy's silvery robot car, now in humanoid robot mode, kicked the wall in and with giant scissors snipped off Pete's horn.

So Pete went to see a fake horn specialist, which turned out to be the Prussian spike helmeted penguin, Bad Synybatbat (1). 

Bad Synybatbat went through the horn options he had to hand; moose, Narwhal ('... it's the latest thing!...'), and unicorn. Pete went with unicorn.

theBoy then decided Pete was now in fact turned into a unicorn the moment the horn was glued on. They then had an altercation of some sort, likely because Pete (the unicorn) attempted to Quixotically charge the (now back to car mode) silvery robot car again.

So Pete fled, ran over a bridge, and, the bridge being a third world rickety rope plus spread-eagled slat kind of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style effort, cut the bridge free so theBoy could not catch him.

'So, Chooky, you could jump over the gorge or fly over the gorge to get him,' I said presenting some possible options.

'I turn into a plane and fly at Pete the unicorn!' he shouted. 

'And it's a propeller plane, Chooky,' I said, attempting to prompt him. Since he'd already sliced off Pete's original horn with the giant scissors I knew he'd take the opportunity to revisit the gag. 

'I cut off Pete's legs!' he yelled. 'Now he can't get away.'

AND ... SCENE.

(1) Bad Synybatbat is the more-evil brother to Synybatbat. Bad Synybatbat's lair is a motorised ice-berg (slash) helicopter. 

Have a cycle and a good lie down

I have death-defying tonight, my once-a-week in the community thing I decided to do as an extended middle finger to the spectre of Death, who may or may not eventually claim me as his own depending on how cybernetic and medical technology progresses. Only before I leave home I have to endure a ghastly bout of cycling on the TPC, an arse-numbing reign of terror that is an exercise bike born and bred (then loaned to us as Mikey don't walk no more) by Casso, the original Learnaean Hydra.

As the great game Dune 2000 famously says 'construction complete'. I have done this.

It was pretty cold out in the shed. I even wore a jumper for the first ten minutes. It took longer too to reach my minimum kill bot limit of 5.9 kays as I was wretched tired and was suffering non-PAG, the unpleasant roil of gas and spasming intestines that can result post bowel movement.

So despite having performed actual exercise I am still tired enough to lie down and maybe even go back to sleep. It's not surprising I'm tired. For the past few days I've naturally woken either at dawn, or before it, no matter how late I went to bed. I think my body is angered or something, like an island volcano. It wants appeasement, the lie down then the equiv of a proffered virgin to calm the rumbling fire cone.

Argh! (weakly shakes fist at life)

theBoy comes in to see me most mornings after seven. Usually he wants stories. I'm already awake, just lying enfeebled having seen dawn arrive through the split in the curtains. So I stay rugged and listlessly contribute as he dances back and forth in the near dark fully-engaged in our shared tale. Yesterday, though, I dialled up the Play school website, theWife having shown theBoy its goodness on the desktop, and we just snuggled up together and played our way through every activity screen. It was nice! But alas also a getting ready to go impediment since he'd far rather do that than go get clothes on, have breakfast etc.

My guts are firing again. Now I have to get up and go visit the toilet lest I attempt a fart that comes out sh instead of f.

(whimpers)

UPDATE: I wrote this this morning via the tablet whilst in bed. But then didn't publish it. So imagine I'm in bed ... and I'm waiting for your call... (1)

(1) Mobiles cost extra.

Credit where due

I got a call from the head office of the company that owns the petrol station conglomerate where we got a flat tyre. They wanted to confirm the location of the pot hole that caused the flat after I drove into then through it. I said we weren't after compensation for the tyre, that we just wanted the hole issue fixed. He said a job had been logged to do just that.

I was not expecting that. A company responding to feedback. I have to say ... I am impressed. Which in many ways is incredibly pathetic. That I am gratified by seeing someone do the right thing.

You crazy, mad world, you.

Ankle fisting

I know, it sounds wrong. theBoy, when frustrated, can lash out. I, as his dad, like to frustrate him. I am a very irritating person, after-all. So my ability to irritate therefore heightens the chance he will lash out. Often this happens in a Storyverse session (1) and it's where I insisted something happened and he is demanding that it did not. Chances are I'm lying down when it happens. It's my default position now. I am Mr Soreandouchy.

So he's irritated to the point of lashing out, and I am lying down.

Enter the fisting.

He's wound up, usually yells in the agitated manner of a depicted-in-a-racist-fashion Japanese soldier and participant in a human wave attack from one of my many Commando comics, then runs up to my feet and starts wailing on my ankles and lower legs with his tiny fists. He either goes for my ankle and legs because it's the closest point of me to him ... or because he knows it's out of my immediate reach to stop given I have to rise and move to grab him.

A good parent would immediately take control, stop it and admonish the violence. And I do try to be good. But I'm very human and unfortunately it makes me laugh. It's usually half a minute before or more before I am in control enough of myself to start the process of applying parental order.

Finally I would like to apologise to the good people at the Aussie Hot Boys website, just in case their poorly engineered web crawler for hot boy-on-boy action accidentally links to this blog. Likely a result of mistakenly honing in on the word fisting, the chance of this happening made more likely given the number of times the words boy, hot, and hot boys have appeared in the same post. Given, you know, erroneous linking by Aussie Hot Boys has happened before...

(1) "Storyverse session" sounds vaguely menacing; like auditing.

And another thing

When we were at the hospital on the Sunday theNieces had popped in for a visit. They gave theBoy a pink hippo plushie. He called it Cuddles.

Being a children's ward there were board games and the like. The pile included Connect Four. I played my older niece, J---. I didn't hold back, I brought my A game. Well, I didn't, I was heavily medicated, but even so I still was a man who had near 30 years of rat cunning over her.

She beat me ... five times in a row.

The hunter has become the hunted!

Al-ri-i-i-i-ght

Synybatbat is perhaps my favourite Storyverse character. If I had to liken his voice to anything then it would be Jimmy Fallon doing Robin Williams.

For those not in the know Synybabat (1) is a penguin that lives in an ice cube igloo, an igloo that is cube shaped in other words, next door to Humpty and Stumpty's tree down by the river. I presume some sort of hand waved high tech or magic keeps Synybatbat's home from melting. Synybatbat sometimes wears a cloth cap, a top hat, or a monocle (or a combination thereof). He drives around in a motorised bunk bed and also has a flying dining room table. 

Lately Synybabat's been a comic foil. If theBoy is building or making something—typically it's a robot—then the penguin will suddenly appear, as if from nowhere, to peer with interest into the item's workings ... only to then accidentally drop in a fish. Or if theBoy's engine, or whatever he is using, conks out and theBoy then checks to see what's wrong he typically discovers it's because a bunch of knives, now broken, have been crunched into the gears or assorted mechanical apparatus. Why? Because that's where Synybatbat has been storing his knife collection. 

Synybatbat, when thwarted, and no matter if he's in the wrong—and he often is—will then shout with shocked outrage 'you're a monster!' To really drive this message home he installed a billboard across the road from our house that reads 'theBoy Surname is a monster! (signed) Synybatbat'. The billboard's presence typically irks theBoy when it's mentioned and theBoy then sets out to sabotage it somehow. To compliment the billboard, and further spread the message that theBoy is indeed a monster, of late the crafty penguin's been taking out live ad reads on local commercial radio. 

(cue commercial radio announcer-type voice) Al-ri-i-i-i-ght, we're back. This just i-i-i-i-n, apparently theBoy is a monst-e-e-e-e-r. We have some icy cold cans of coke to give away...

It is, after-all, harder to hack a live read on radio. 

In addition to the live reads Synybatbat upgraded his billboard from plastered paper to an electronic screen so he could craft situational specific messages when needed. For added impact. For example 'theBoy is a monster because he put me in a soapy bath and squeezed my tummy (signed) Synybatbat'.

All good stuff. Except ... theBoy decided to hack the billboard ... and the radio; difficulty be dammed. 

'I change the billboard to say Synybatbat is a monster! (change, change, change) then I call up the radio! 'Al-r-i-i-i-i-g-ht ... this just i-i-i-i-n ... Synybatbat is a monst-e-e-e-e-r.'

Yes, he did it. He said that last bit in an actual commercial radio announcer-type voice.

*SO PROUD*

Tonight, as he was getting tucked in, he was telling us about all the kids he's going to have, his future wife (2), and other future family type arrangements. He presumed I'd still be in the picture. 

'And when you're a poppy you can still do Humpty and Stumpty with me,' he said.

Chooky ... I know you're only four and a bit ... but I am fully holding you to that...

(1) His full name is actually Synybattybatbat but it's shortened for convenience.

(2) Her name is Callum. They will sleep in a bunk bed. She will have the top bunk.

The golden thread—from then to now

Way back in the before ago I wrote a blog post about the irritating footage they show of an interview subject doing random tasks (1) while a narrator drones on about them before then cutting to the interview subject speaking on the subject they want them to speak on.

Anyway I was having a read of Crikey and First Dog had a strip about The Shire, the new Channel Ten (I think) reality show based on Jersey Shore and set in the area of Syd-en-ee where the race riots happened in the mid-noughties. I thought the production company may have already slung some clips on YouTube to take advantage of the furore. They appear not to have (I'd argue that's a PR fail). But there was a clip from Sunrise (2), the morning news plus worried mum stuff effort from Channel Seven, about The Shire and which included an interview with the local mayor(ess).

So naturally they show some footage of the mayor(ess) doing random tasks as she's introduced to us, shown on screen to be intently using a laptop. At the 0.40 mark they then cut to a close up of her finger tip idly fingering tight circles on the laptop's track pad.

Why? Why is close up there? She could not be possibly doing anything actually practical whatsoever with such a manuever. To be honest it looked like bored clitoral play only played out on a track pad. Like perhaps she was demonstrating a sex toy at an incredibly uncomfortable adult toys Tupperware party style effort where the party host had only agreed to have it her place because she was getting a 20 per cent discount on a ThunderWand™ and a free half pint of glitter-lube. 

I expect better, Sunrise.

(1) Yes, I do have a mental image of Austin Powers' Random Task on the job. I think he later turned out to have done no nos in the real world. Let me look that up later.

(2) We used to watch Sunrise when getting ready for work in the mornings. Then theNoo came. Now we don't. I don't miss it.

It might be time to bid adieu

No, not that, I mean to my sad pills. I've been reading up on the side effects. I think there's a chance they may be exacerbating the sheer constant post-surgery ache of my body, with muscle weakness being a potential complication. They also have an enhancement to caffeine half life and might be impacting on my crap sleep. Plus they can impact on bowel regularity. It seems counter intuitive to stop them because I have depression but if they're potentially exacerbating my IBS and enhancing my surgery-induced ouchies from the most minor of physical activity then perhaps it's worth giving that a go? Since the reason I am depressed is mostly because I feel like shit and can't shit properly most of the time. I could always back stop my sads armour with fast-acting anti-anxiety meds that I could take on an as needed basis if the incidences of grief-bursts arise post stopping a daily pill.

Time to talk to the doc I think.

Yay!

The other day I spilled my remaining SUPERMEDS! They spilled in the shed and went scattering across the dust bunny dusted floor and into nooks and crannies. I could only find about half of them. Now, having run out, I decided to go back in. With the self-powered torch for extra illumination I moved boxes and hunted through the cobwebbed spill zone to see if I could recover more. I suppose in a way this is analogous to higher crude oil prices resulting in unprofitable operations now becoming profitable. My need was greater and thus I was willing to ferret around a rather hideous environment to garner what little I could get. Oh no! This is the plot to the second Mad Max movie!

Anyway, I found some. Covered in shed filth, but still viable. I had them and they did the trick. Indeed, this may sound a tad after school special, but the fact I earned them by having to endure crouching, winding (of the self-powered torch) and fossicking amid dark recesses of a past life (1) made the joy of their use that much sweeter.

(turns to side, pelvic thrusts like Duff man)

Oh yeah...

(1) i.e. no longer used furniture and boxes of our tat

Still edgy

I'm still not having fun at work. I feel on edge. Each time my boss or someone senior to me wants to talk to me I steel myself for a potential bollocking. 

My self esteem is low a lot of the time. I especially worry with the time I have off work and the fact I sometimes end up going in late or working from home. 

Still it's not all bad. The two new guys we have for six months are awesome. S--- is a bright, smart, funny person and skilled at her trade. D--- is a quiet guy with a shy smile who likewise seems to be able to do his job. So that part at least is excellent. S--- even laughed at my recalling an obscure piece of political trivia. She called me Mikeypedia.

But ... that sense of unease is still there. Still hanging over me. I suppose it didn't help that my guts flared up and led me to do one of those explosive efforts that look like a Pro Hart painting where he'd thrown brown paint at a canvas from a low flying Cessna. Naturally it went well above the water line and even onto the riser itself, the plastic riser in place to lift me higher and higher so I don't bend when I shit. It's never fun being at work when you feel shit house and indeed nearly get shit into the house (or office) because it nearly made it out of the fucking bowl. 

Oh well, perhaps it will be better tomorrow. I hope so. At least I got the tyre fixed. The puncture was so bad the sidewall had been ripped asunder. I had to get a completely new tyre. But as it got fitted I tooled across the road to a nice cafe and sat and read my schlocky book about freaks as I yummed down a toasted ham and cheese croissant.

So ... why do I have a schlocky book about freaks? Well, thanks in part to having been both a cub and a scout (1), I like to be prepared. So I keep a couple of books in the car to read in case I am stuck somewhere. One of them is a book about freaks. It's from the same series of schlocky books that cover famous murders or trials, or super scandals. It's all gloriously tabloid-esq and utterly lacking in any evidential mechanisms such as footnotes or endnotes. You have to take it all with a grain of salt. 

The freaks book was actually a bit sad. There was a section about the deliberate manufacture of freaks from ancient through modern times. Where normal children were subjected to horrific injuries and deliberate malformations in order to provide entertaining freaks. Mostly for the benefit of wealthy people, many of whom who had freak collections. Yes, the 1 per cent were literally corrupting the bodies of the poor for their own amusement. Of course as noted the book was light on proof so I am presuming some of it is exaggeration, distortion, or falsehood. But I will look up some of the historical figures mentioned to see if the book was at all close to the mark.

But, yes, work. It's not pleasant. I am not enjoying it. I don't have that buzz of 'I am doing good' but rather the anti-buzz of 'I am being watched or judged'. 

It's just so ... fucking ... high school. Twenty two years on and I am still feeling like shit in the place where I am forced to be. Hooray! 

(1) That didn't last that long. My recollection is that I got asked to leave. I could be wrong. I could have made that decision. That's the marvellous thing about memory. It's so ... plastic.

Sister Mary Elephant

The first day on my vacation, I woke up
Then I went downtown to look for a job
Then I hung out in front of the drugstore
Sister Mary Elephant bit from Cheech and Chong

We took a mini-break, Bridget Jones-style, and headed back to my old hometown, hometown being defined as the place I spent my formative years, to see family. It was the first big trip since the TFCWM (1).

So ... rather than go linear and include everything here are the stand out moments. 

Throwing up in the bushes near the bogan palace 
The bogan palace is a large pokie palace (slash) bistro-style dining place just up from the hotel where we stay when on the road to my hometown. Some food got stuck and I had to duck out near where the empty kegs were stacked. As I chucked up a kitchen hand came out to smoke a cig. I pretended I was just taking a call on my iPhone when in fact I'd been merely reading a longform article whilst concentrating on being efficiently sick.

Being annoyed by signage
The bogan palace has a playroom for kids. It has a big heavy glass door theBoy can barely open. It has those chocolate and prize claw machines in it as "entertainment" and some beaten up Nintendo crap. The glass wall had a passive-aggressive sign demanding that parents be in view of their children in the playroom AT ALL TIMES!! This irked me somewhat when the placement of the dining tables and chairs was such that unless you were Reed Fucking Richards himself, you couldn’t physically be seated and comply with it. So in a way my throwing up in their trimmed bushes was my Zorro-esq rapier-swish scored into their landscape on behalf of the afflicted peasantry (offended parents unable to comply with poorly constructed passive-aggressive signage) (2).

theBoy contracting a virus and it inflaming his poor little lungs
We went straight to casualty when we got in—you don’t fuck around with asthma—and spent four hours there getting him checked. We left … and came back at 11.30 that night, theWife and theBoy checked into the children’s ward and staying there that night and for most of the next day. But as far as hospital visits go—we’ve had about five I think since theBoy’s been here (3)—it was a really good one. Caring, attentive staff (4). Helpful people. Nice facilities.

Walking the streets around my old hometown hospital
A lot of memories there. Most of them not good ones. Save for doing work experience at the pathology department. Over two days I got to work in the room where all the shit was tested, slice wax and organ lumps for slides and slicing my hands up in the process, and getting to do it with my high school bud M---, who to this day is still an awesome friend and the only person I’ve stayed in touch with since school (5). But as I walked around the hospital I dialled up myself some Marc Maron podcasts and listened to his interviews with Ralphie May and Jimmy Kimmel. The podcasts sucked me in and helped me blank out the pain of the walking—my being forced to walk again for exercise since I was not near a handy exercise bike. My body is still utterly wrung-out, I feel as if the day before I’d gone for an ill-advised power run, and by the end of each walk I had the lumbering sweaty pain-wracked gait of a 1920s Southern chain gang.

Going past the house where theWife once lived
It was a small three bedroom house. theWife lived there with her then flatmates in the early 90s. I house sat alone for them one Summer for six glorious weeks. It had been comprehensively renovated. The thin sliver of a room theWife slept when she lived there had been turned into a new entry for the house, a spanking door where once we slept. theWife’s room was just big enough for her queen-sized bed, it snugly inserted between the walls, and a small dresser. She didn’t even have a proper door, instead a concertina rubber-backed door off the then lounge-room. Which meant if anyone was up using the lounge then theWife had minimal privacy or relief from their noises. 

Seeing our nieces
They’re simply beautiful, special girls; one a late-tween, the other an early one. They’re both smart, funny, talented creatures. It was a joy seeing them. They even brought out instruments and entertained us with their music skillz (Grade 5 level, I think). We then shouted demands for various TV tunes and they attempted to rock out Bob the Builder, the Jaws theme, and the theme to Get Smart. 

Showing a Storyverse session to the gathered family
We showed a session to theDad, the SisInLaw, theNieces, theFamilyFriend, with theBoy and I running like seniors cricketers at bat jogging jollily back and forth between wickets as we told a convoluted story centered on Arthur from the Luc Besson series. In this case Arthur was naked in his honey jam factory save for a single item of apparel; a jar of honey jam hanging from a chain, the combo like a preserved fruit over fruits version of a Borat mankini. theBoy was dressed in a matching striped top and pants that together looked like a onesie. It was cute as all heck.

Meeting K---
K--- is around 12 I think. She was in because of an inability to keep down food. She has cerebral palsy and a fucked-up digestive system. She was pretty skinny. She was also fiercely intelligent and compassionate. She introduced herself, explained she was an old hand, showed us how the TV worked and where the kids' DVDs were kept and told us when meal times were. She offered to hang out with theBoy. She also candidly shared her own tale of why she was there. K--- had a real gift for sharing herself. I told her she should write. I hope she does. As we left I told her “word press is a good one for writing”. Sorry blogspot but it’s true. It’s where all the bloggers have gone now. This is but a single sorry light in a darkening sky.

Walking outside in the drizzled night
The rain was lit orange by overhead streetlights. I paced around outside and as I paced I continued with the rest of the Maron-Kimmel podcast. 

Seeing my mum each day
She's the youngest inmate of the dementia ward by a good seeming twenty years. Twice when we turned up it was at supper time. On the first occasion the inmates had massive bibs on, like they were fully grown babies, to catch the horrid sludge of their soft food as it spilled from failing mouths. On the second occasion one of them, an old man in blue pyjamas that writhed in a great surgical green chair, cried out 'I want to go home' over and over. One of the other inmates heard it and started singing the chorus of a song that had 'I want to go home' in it. Then another inmate, and a staff member joined in, all singing over the top of the poor blue PJ clad fucker who was in genuine emotional distress for a home he's lost and that he's now trapped in the last place he'll be before he dies. It was all I could do to not just bawl at the fucked nature of it all. Later theDad told me he'd been talking to one of the more lucid ones, who was early onset and who was still aware he had dementia. He was rightly bitter about his fate. It's a horrid, horrid, upsetting thing to go through and I can only imagine how utterly wretched it made theDad feel going through it. theDad goes for an hour every day he's at home and able to move—theDad now in his mid-seventies and afflicted with occasional gout and with reduced energy, forced to nap most days in the afternoon. His forbearance is incredible. As we drove home I clung to the hope that science will have caught up with and defeated dementia by the time I close in on my theMum's genes kicking in for me.

Being tail-gated by a fuckwit truck driver in his big rig
The driver's truck nearly bumped our bumper the truck was that close. If the car one length in front of us had braked at all and we'd done likewise we'd have all been creamed across and off the road. We took the truck’s plate number and even tried calling one of the numbers listed on the side of its trailer only to discover the number was a dead one. We’re going to report it. We last saw it when it overtook three cars ahead of us and going 120 in an 80 zone and crossing a solid white line while doing so.

theBoy and I introducing Colonel Sanders as a Storyverse character
We decided theColonel lives in the bucket mounted on the pole outside of KFC. At one point theColonel appeared in a Storyverse session, chasing after us in the bucket, the bucket sproinging along on a giant spring. He looked like a Southern fry version of Baba Yaga. I said theColonel was chasing us because he wanted us for his tiny sex dungeon. theBoy also decided theColonel was naked, except that is for his string tie. One of the parks of the micro-towns we passed through had a wheelie-bin sized statue of a chicken as a talking feature. So the chicken statue also chased us at one point. When theBoy was riven with flu we stopped by the road for a break and I held him in my arms, his little body wracked with coughing and struggled breathing, and I soothed him with tales of the chicken chasing us. In the end we defeated it by climbing a tree and sawing a branch off so that the branch fell on the chicken. Take that you stupid chicken (statue)!

Being in casualty at 1.30 in the morning
theBoy had a mask strapped to his face, the mask roiling clouds of pharma-mist as they pumped breathing-assist gases into theBoy. To distract him I told him it was a dragon mask and he was breathing out smoke like a dragon. The casualty nurses overheard and joined in, calling it a dragon mask. Well, if it’s dragons then it’s cool to wear it so theBoy didn’t fight wearing it. We then told Storyverse stories, as quietly as we could, his voice muffled by his dragon mask, until I got sent off to get some sleep while theWife stayed overnight with theBoy.

Achieving a total driving time for the drive there and back of just three minutes
theWife typically drives, and I drive when she’s tired. But I was feeling refreshed and offered to give her a break, taking over just after we’d filled up at one of the “service” stations that serve as way-points on the Canberra to Sydney freeway. I hit a massive pot hole that had encroached into the feeder road back to the freeway with the front left tyre and within a couple of minutes we knew something was wrong from the rapid flubbidy-dub sound coming from the car. Yes, the tyre was fucked. We then spent twenty minutes unloading the car, getting out the emergency spare, and swapping out the fucked tyre for the reduced-size spare. A tyre that meant you could only legally go at 80 kays an hour. theBoy sat on the long black bag a few metres from the double lane freeway, massive trucks hurtling past at on or over a 100, and made incessant demands for Humpty and Stumpty. We got back to the “service” station only to discover that new tyres wasn’t their bag and then being told by NRMA that we’d simply have to drive all the way home on our 80 kays an hour limited reduced-size spare. Fortunately it was double-lanes all the way so we didn’t hold anyone up. But I was pretty mad and started angrily spewing choice words about the conglomerate that owned the “service” station given their infrastructure fucked our tyre then couldn’t even put it right.

Getting home and being sent straight off to the shed to mount the TPC
The TPC is an exercise bike on-loan from the Red Queen herself, Casso. I got to release pent-up energy and got the cramped feeling out of my body from having been in a car for 12 hours. It helped that I was blissed out on SUPERMEDS™ and watching a never-seen episode from the first season of Blake’s Seven.

Anyway, I'm glad we went. If only because we had to as we were massively behind in kays needed to be done on our leased vehicle. I know, it's a stupid thing to have a legal artifice that mandates you waste fuel and time on worsening the condition of your car. But we have to otherwise we cop a massive Fringe Benefits Tax liability.

I doubt we'll do the leased thing again. If only because it's a bit of a fuck you to the planet...

(1) Hi. New to HM, or Harrangueman? Don’t know what TFCWM is? Well if you must know it’s the initialism for The Fucking Catalina Wine Mixer from the awesome-as-fuck Step Brothers by McKay and Ferrell, just the most talented writer-actor pair to hit comedy since I don’t know when. That in turn being the name we gave my then impending hip operation because, despite the drama of it all it would in theory lead to a positive outcome. Presuming that was one of those one in a thousand chance things of going wrong does not happen. Which in my case did.
(2) Blast from the past movie shout out. Zorro: the Gay Blade. I remember seeing it for the first time upon return from a night out at Christian Youth Group, a weirdly self-afflicted self-esteem injury effort from my teen years when I followed my looked-up-to older brother from the local town role-playing group (2a) to Christian youth group. Little did I realise he’d let his hormones do the talking and he did so in order to attempt to schlep a simply angelic peer whose beauty was such that if there had been a renaissance painting of her that painting would be loved for all time and appear on tea towels in the museum gift shop. Alas it was the last 15 or so minutes and I picked up where a portly mute Sancho Panza-esq figure was galloping along whilst clad in what appeared to be a teddy bear costume. I was instantly entranced. It was before we’d gotten a VCR so when I dreamed one day we would have one then Zorro: The Gay Blade was one of my top three movies I would rent first so I could taste all of the forbidden fruit. Why then? A perfect blend of writing and comedy. George Hamilton, the man who put the tan in man, or rather was the icon of the hyper-tanned white men of the west coast of America (y’all), was just perfectly deployed to serve in the roles of both Zorro and Zorro’s cousin, and the dude who played the villain was just fuck-off hilarious. Totally worth a watch. As MM would say; DO IT!
(2a) They dreaded my presence. I was 10 and hyper off my nut. I actually had to be dragged out of the roof cavity of the community hall we rented on Friday nights because I’d seen a ladder and, eyes bright, shot up it like a horny drainpipe rat.
(3) Another shout out. It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. What a fucking funny show that was to me when I was of that age and of that place in time. Even now I think I’d find it still funny. Why this footnote? The “been here” reminded me of the theme song. The words “been here” don’t actually appear in the theme song but been here reminded me of the lads singing “the boys are here to entertain you!” Fuck me the Sergeant Major was a kak. He made that show. He fully fucking made it. In fact the actor (Windsor Davies) was funny in everything he fucking did. I know, the use of fucking makes this seem cheap and tawdry, the work of a potty mouth no-nothing instead of the svelte she rabbit of blogging I’ve become, glistening on the wet rocks of blogspot as I display my beauty.
(4) The doctor who treated theBoy was apparently also the doctor who’d examined me when I was but a lad for concern about my stunted growth and had said that my height could be adjusted upward my an experimental treatment but he recommended a wait-and-see approach. Which was lucky as the treatment involved injections of pituitary gland from actual dead people; in other words harvested from cadavers (4)a.
(4a) That needs to be the title of something—anything. Album, blog post, novel, chocolate bar. Something. Harvested from cadavers is a mouthful of spun word gold (4b).
(4b) As, indeed, is spun word gold. 
(5) Twenty two years this year since I finished high school. That blows my mind.

Adios, fake Santa

I'm a fan of recurring motifs or character actions appearing in Storyverse. It makes it more fun for him to re-deal with stuff that has happened before. Especially as it gives him a chance to learn from previous encounters.

For example Synybatbat got booted out of the workshop for attempted robot peering, where the penguin with a fish "in hand" peers over into the workings of whatever robot theBoy is creating and then accidentally drops in the fish. 

To get back in to the workshop Synybatbat again pretended to be Santa Claus, appearing on the monitor feed as a hooded bearded figure. So theBoy let him in and within seconds Synybatbat was headed for the gantry above the robot, fish in hand, to go and have another "peer". theBoy wasn't having any of that! 

'Synybatbat falls as he goes up the stairs and he eats his false beard and it goes into his tummy and he DIES!' shouted theBoy. 

I had to hand it to him. That was a good way of taking out Synybatbat. But never fear, death is not permanent in Storyverse (1). Humpty then ran in and removed the false beard (2) and did CPR on the penguin and brought him back.

In another earlier session Synybatbat had attempted to sneak in disguised as the Easter Bunny. theBoy saw through it, my description of him having a beak was a giveaway, then decided a big robot hand came out of the door and pushed Synybatbat down a hole!

Take that, you stupid penguin!

(1) Witness the resurrection of Rat who now owns the Ich Bin Ein Ladybird cafe and whose offerings all come laced ... with ladybirds. For example the 'Nilla milkshake comes festooned with swimming ladybirds ... which theBoy always gets rid of then tells off rat for sticking them in his food (slash) drink. Oh that Rat...

(2) theBoy said it went in his tummy but I presumed he meant the penguin choked on it ... unless the toxicity of the beard was such it instantly killed him...

Defect notice served

The setting was a chocolate shop. I imagine some sort of Parisian (slash) English High Street narrow-waisted building. theBoy was making chocolates and various Storyverse characters nearly spilled crap into the chocolate machine. A machine only he trusted himself to use because everyone else was so careless near it. Synybatbat nearly dropped three fish in it before theBoy eventually booted him out of the shop. Then Synybatbat disguised himself as Santa Claus and rang the door bell. I told theBoy that on the monitor he could see a ‘hooded, bearded figure’. The figure then asked for entry, which resulted in me impersonating Synybatbat impersonating Santa Claus (1). theBoy blithely let him in. So Synybatbat was straight off to the gantry above the machine, fish ready for the drop when theBoy tackled him. I said the false beard came off and flew into the machine but theBoy didn’t like that, ran over, and fiercely pounded me in the ankle joint with his fist. He immediately apologised. I gave him a face-saver and allowed him to snag the false beard with a plastic net before it went in.

Anyway eventually chocolates were made; an egg, a rabbit, and a robot chicken. The robot chicken was really meant to be just a chicken but I pretended to mishear and said robot chicken, then kept repeating it. Thus it had entered play and he could no long change it under our rules without a negotiation. Anyway he decided to give the chocolate robot chicken to Robot and Robot sliced it into tiny cubes with a laser then dropped the lot down a sluice into its body. ‘YUMMY’ blared Robot.

So the Robot had extra energy and offered to do chores for theBoy. It made his bed … into a wardrobe! Unfortunately the construction was a one way process and the result was no more bed. theBoy was cross, went and got a new one. The Robot asked if theBoy wanted it made into a wardrobe and theBoy said no. The Robot then promptly tuned the bed into a wardrobe, evidently having misunderstood theBoy’s response.

theBoy thought about it for a moment.

‘I pull out my PLODE! gun and I shoot the Robot! And he blows into bits! And the ice cubes of chocolate fall out!’

I then collapsed into a fit of giggles as he ran back and forth like a smirk-train trilling at the superiority of his wit.

(1) Which is almost Python-esq. I forget where I read it but my favourite quote about the essence of Monty Python in full display was the stoning scene in The Life of Brian where women, played by the Python guys, who were not allowed to be at the stoning and thus were in disguise as men. So in other words they were men pretending to be women pretending to be men. That’s champagne comedy!

WikFin—The Borscht Belt

Wikipedia is the greatest website in the world. The greatest! There's a reason I've read but one book since the start of the year—owning a tablet and loving Wikipedia. I can idly surf through and between an array of wiki-topics for hours and hours, filling my gooey pink and grey matter with much information that is likely but an idle curiosity (if that) to others.

On occasion I will find little nuggets of gold. Just a line or two that really hits home, either for the subject matter discussed, or the way in which it was written. I like to call such finds 'WikFins' (1).

So to that end I give you the wiki page for 'The Borscht Belt', the commonly used term to describe summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York that were a popular vacation spot for New York City Jewish people from the 1920s up to the 1960s (the resorts fading in popularity when as long-distance travel, such as to the Bahamas, became cheaper). 

The WikFin? This paragraph and its last line.

Two of the larger hotels in High View (just north of Bloomingburg) were Shawanga Lodge and the Overlook. One of the high points of Shawanga Lodge's existence came in 1959, when it was the site of a conference of scientists researching laser beams. The conference marked the start of serious research into lasers. The hotel burned to the ground in 1973. Lasers played no role in the fire.

I fully love that someone added that last line. It made me laugh and laugh and laugh. 

God bless you, Wikipedia.

(1) Wiki-find in retrospect is a much more intuitive phrase to use. Sigh. I'm stuck with WikFin now I think.

A Dunkirk of a day

You know me. I'm an unalloyed narcissist that gleefully appropriates world-shaking events and imagery to celebrate or commiserate in moments of petty personal triumph or affliction. For example any time I give someone a power left-fisting I feel compelled to link them to the then-infamous yet-highly-courageous Black Power Salute at the 1968 Olympics. 

Dunkirk is chunk of France near the Belgian border. Its major claim to fame is that it's where in World War Two when France fell the British Expeditionary Force fled to in order to receive evacuation back to dear old Blighty. Fortunately for the Brits, and thanks in part to air cover from England protecting the massed men, the vast bulk of those at Dunkirk got away, though the forces had to abandon much of their heavier kit, with thousands of tons of material left lying in the sand behind them.

Today I awoke with a sharp gut pain just after seven AM. I rolled off the bed, down the slope of the half-off mattress, and onto the carpet. I then staggered to the toilet and attempted to go. No attempting about it; I went. And went. And went. It was one of those ones where you get a warning signal from your business area that size-wise it's going to hurt; a lot. And it did; a lot. With guts flaring with pain from after-spasm I departed ... only to return literally two minutes later when my bowels re-engaged and forced me back for a follow up. This happened twice more again in twenty minutes with a normal person's amount produced each time. Then, later, away from home ... twice more again over a couple more hours.

I have slow motility. By and large it takes twice as long for food to become not-food when travelling through my system. This means I am usually packing a fair chunk of internal waste matter at any one time. This leading to abdominal spasms, bloating, writhing and other unfortunate symptoms. Today it seems my body decided to evacuate the entirety of the massed fecal forces awaiting in my internal Dunkrik.

It's been an hour since the last attack (slash) visit. I feel slightly saggy in my body. My suddenly empty entrails don't know what to do with themselves. I don't have PAG—or Poo After Glow—because there was too much pain and resultant post-movement spasms within to provide it. But I do feel "empty" for the first time in well the longest time that I can remember.

And to top it off ... even though it's a public holiday here in Canberra ... I'm working. Though in truth it's very effective working because I don't have anyone bothering me and I can just get on with it. Hooray for me!

Anyway, here's to hoping all the boys got picked up and no one was left behind. I don't want to endure another Dunkirk run...

Escape clauses

theBoy has a series of phrases or words he can use to effectively end a daddy cuddle. So yes, in a way, safety words. Things like 'PAUSE!' which, as per pausing a DVD, freezes me in place, allowing him to wriggle free. There's also 'put magic on you to make you let go!' which then makes my hands spring apart. He scrambles free as I attempt to resist the magic and once he's cleared a couple of feet in distance I will try for his foot for a little extra-holding-on time to heighten his joy of his escape.

But sometimes I do want a cuddle so I pretend to mishear—'Put magic to ... not let go? Okay...'—or I tweak or block on the safety-seeking. 

Today he went the PAUSE! 'Sorry, Chooky,' I yelled as I grappled his firm little wriggly body, 'the remote doesn't work.' I figured that would give me at least ten seconds while he remembered the exact combo for the magic word themed release safety phrase alternate. He didn't need to; within a beat of being told the remote didn't work he yelled 'put new batteries in the remote!'

Well played, sir. Well played.

Do you make up adult-versions of kids show lyrics?

You almost have to in order to cope with their presence. The best one to use is Giggle and Hoot's. By the way ... the new girl owl ... I call lame on the voice. That's not a girl owl voice. That's a normal girl voice. It doesn't fit.

Plus you know Jimmy totally wants to tap it...

I got menaced by toughs

As a clearly physically inferior specimen to your average man, I think of myself more like a man-leprechaun but without the Fiddley-dee Irish bit or powers, I tend to attract abuse. My height shows I am likely not a threat, my large tumtum (1) invites ridicule. My bones also click/clack reliably as I walk, kind of like a skeletal train car. 

It's not that often that it happens, but it's often enough for me to sigh and laugh that it's happening again. Usually it's vehicle-bourne abuse, being told, for example, that I am both heavyset and that I should be likened to the entry-point on a lady. The abuse typically delivered by a car-load of bogans roaring past me in their early-model shit-heap or late model commodore, a vehicle they're likely paying the vast bulk of their tiny salary towards because they have no concept of modern finance. Yesterday the abuse was delivered to me from a seated position as I walked past them. 

Our local shops has a bakery that doesn't bake bread. Instead of bread it makes delish savouries and cakes. One of their savouries is an open-topped bacon and egg pie with a swirl of some sort of brown sauce, likely barbecue. They don't make them all the time. Saturdays, yes, but they're all gone by 10 am (2). Fridays, more often than not they will. So on the off chance they did a Friday bake I stopped in.

We usually park in the public parking (slash) service vehicle fusion mini-park out the back of one of the wings of speciality shops. You can always get a park there and it's only a short walk from one of the duopoly dominant super super-markets that rules the Ozzer grocery landscape. 

It's also where the only pay phone is (3) is, on the corner near the walk-thru between where the wing stops and the next building conglomerate starts. There's usually also three over-turned milk-crates, the heavy-duty plastic kind that have in raised white lettering a warning that being caught with one means a $500 fine. 

So there they were, gangly post-teens with their patchy youth-beards and clothes. I couldn't tell if they were working post-teens, tradies for example but in their street wear, or just drifting post-school. I didn't bother looking at them because OpSec has taught Mikey that making eye contact with people I inherently distrust invites communication. 

'Excuse me!' yelled their probably self-appointed leader. I was the only one around so it was directed at me. 'How's your penis?'

Now a day later I realise it was a fat-crack. You know, he saw me from my Alfred Hitchcock Presents position, sideways (profile's wrong), and thus my stored energy over-hang was snugly shielding the area where presumed genitalia would be found. I wouldn't be able to look to check its status. I'd have to determine by feel alone. Hilarious! Fatty has to feel his willie to know where and what it's at. 

But in the moment to me it was just a laughing, bullying cockbag comment at a complete stranger for a micro-boost to a sagging ego. 

I didn't respond and kept going. 

The bakery didn't have the Friday pie and I didn't feel like anything else. So I left, figuring I'd getting a yummy lunch instead. Perhaps from the nice cafe I told the rest of my building about and then got cruelly smacked down for by my boss+ for apparently violating ethics in doing so (4)?

There was a woman ahead of me as I went through the walk-thru. I wondered if her presence would stymie their urge to have another crack. It did not.

I went past the milk-crate seated abusing trio, and I'd argue risking a total of $1500 in fines for their flagrant crate-possession (5), and the leader spoke again. 'Excuse me! Excuse me!' he yelled, in barking laughter. 

I ignored it, maintained my current pace, and did not appear troubled at all. I then simply drove away to my well-paid job that I am good at. Living well and all that.

(1) Look, I've had it with your rebels! Always trying to store wounded comrades in me. I AM NOT A SLEEPING BAG!

(2) You have to weigh up sleep versus getting the delish. Though usually it's theWife who heads up because she's such a good egg.

(3) I know, right? A pay phone! It's almost quaint. How amazing it is to have lived in an age where the pay phone was rendered a tertiary means of calling people.  

(4) I actually posited the scenario to the ethics area, screening the identity of the participants, and they said to have praised a business so was likely a technical very minor breech of one of the policies and that in this case they recommended the supervisor politely point it out to the sender. Not, for example, smack you across the nose by email and CCing in your boss and boss++. Another 'my daughter's cup-cake business is appearing at X markets' building-wide email went out, sent by a woman whose now administratively been moved under boss+. I wonder if she got an email? I suspect not. I guess I'll find out if another cup-cake missive is sent.If that happens then I'm adding it to the list of stuff to brood about then treasure, knowing if I get fucked over I can bring that up as a flagrant example of unfairly applied supervision. Hooray for evidence!

(5) In Seinfeld (5a) there was a detective for the public library that tracked down overdue books. His name was Bookman. I wonder if the Canberra Milk People have a person whose duties includes the tracking down, retrieval, and fining of people who have appropriated milk crates? Also, it would be great if their name was crate-related. For example Crateman. Or Krates. Or even Kr500dreddollarfineforillegalmilkcratepossession.

(5a) Oh, Cassandra. Why oh why do you not like the Sein? How can you not like the Sein? For an amazing spectacle of womanness you are sadly lacking in the Seinfeld appreciation department. 

Maybe that's how they'll tell sex bots from people in the future?

In addition to handsome men having recently joined my neck of the work woods, so have handsome other genders. There's one woman who, like beautiful Indian-hued man, appears to have stepped from the pages of some sort of high class catalogue. A couture catalogue perhaps? You know, fancy. 

I saw her at the photocopier. She must have just been on or just about to go on lunchtime exercise, with snug fitting but not in poor taste running tracksuit pants (or sweat-suit for you vulgar Americans) and a snug but again not improper long-sleeved comfortable shirt. As she performed her oddly-now-archaic task—I rarely photocopy anything now; we're scanner-people!—I could see her from behind. Her spinal column was weirdly prominent. You could see from her tail bone right up through to the base of her skull. Little perfectly formed vertebrae snugly covered in a faint hiss of sportswear-appropriate cloth. 

So it got me to thinking. Maybe that's how they'll tell sex bots from people in the future? (1) Mandate that the sexy-time bots have raised or prominent spinal columns. Not too off-putting and instantly recognisable. Even sexy in its own way, what with all those yummy bumps and ridges to grind off on. If, that is, back-grinding is your bag (baby). Of course people, such as in this case, with raised or prominent spinal columns would potentially suffer humiliation or embarrassment if confused for or when likened to a sex-bot. Presumably there'd be some sort of policy mechanism by which such people could have government-funded surgery to lessen their spinal cord overtness, or receive subsidies to purchase clothing of a thicker weave.

I'm Mikey. Thinking about the need for policy mechanisms to reduce the negative impact on afflicted people is how I roll (cue saunter).

(1) Was bolding the line so you were reminded it's the header too much? I think so. Dang it!

Sesh four—pedal to da floor!

So it was week four of my death-defying, Mikey's heading on out to do community-style stuff with then-strangers. So-called death-defying because the one in a thousand chance of something going wrong happening during my hip replacement reminded me that, fuck it, life is too short. You have to grab what you can get and hold on for dear rest-of-your-life. 

The community thing is something I've always wanted to do. I know I'm being coy but the OpSec to screen my real person is pretty ingrained. The community thing involves doing fun stuff with fun-minded people and where you don't give a tinkers about the person's athletic ability, their real-life occupation, or their politics. You just muck in supportively and have a fuck-off awesome time. 

Fortunately my new-won sense of daring-do, resulting in my powerfully attending a three-month weekly course (1), has managed to cope with the awkward part of doing things with people you don't know.

Anyway, so it's week four. I've learned some new skillz and I seem to be not-suckful at it. That's important for me. You see I feel much of the time like I am suckful. This isn't a plea for you to say 'Mikey, you don't suck'. I thank you and I appreciate the kisses. This is just how you feel it be when you're in light-to-mild discomfort most of the time, and feeling pretty yuck for the rest. When you feel suckful then you feel you are suckful; a suckful person. A person worthy of receiving light-scorn and being dismissed as a lesser. 

So on with the show. I am not-suckful at something. A something that even involves moving around a bit. I guess that's kind of a big deal to me. You know, hierarchy of needs and all that. I even got S--- to genuinely laugh and he's the most comedic-like person, and a man equally nerdly obsessed with comedy as me, I've met to date. 

It's important, so fucking important, to have separate world you can go to when a world you have to be in, like work or school, turns into a crap-fest. Something you're passionate about or that you can lose yourself in (2). Or a place with people who don't know you in your normal life and don't give a fuck about that other life. You need something, anything, to cling to when the waters of everything-else are dragging you down. Think of it as an upside-down esky pressed into service when your tinnie capsized because you thought you'd be cool and not wear a life-vest. Yes, cool alright—hypothermia that is!

Anyway, the death-defying thing. I'm glad I'm doing it. Here's to gollying in the eye-socket of the Reaper. (HONK-Spit!).

(1) I'm like the fucking Solo man. By the way, epic fail from a safety viewpoint, the Solo man ads. Remember them? There was (from memory) a russet-haired muscular moustached gent who shot-gunned a can of Solo—the mouth of the can wider than a typical can so you could "slam it down fast", the wide-mouth being the feature to distinguish it from other brands of lemon fizzy—then slid his fucking kayack down a mother-fucking jungle slope and into a fucking river. HE'S A MAN! Ladies, you're not wrong if your own lemon is fizzing at the thought of being serviced by the Solo man, fresh from a successful hillside-launched kayacking, The man is a hunk-o-spunk (1a). This older version of the Solo man ad is especially more hilarious. It fully feels like a parody done by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. You watch it now, right now, and you look me in the comments field and tell me I am not right. But I am right; see footnote 1b. Anyway, the safety thing. I call foul because if you have a big bushy mo you can get your fucking mo snagged in the area of the broken-off-ring-pull. It happened to me once and the Beve, just one of my all-time most favourite of people I've worked with (and boy do I miss having a workplace bestie), had to cut me free from a snagged-in can of Diet Coke, the Beve artfully manuevering the scissors into place to safely cut me free. He was like a cross between Florence fucking Nightingale and Jesus H Christ. 

(1a) We have a recent new starter who happens to be Indian in appearance. As in a man who has brown skin, straight black hair, and whose ethnic-culture origin is likely India. I have no idea if he is a naturalised immigrant or an Australian-born or recently born and raised here person of Indian heritage. He also happens to be one of the fuck-off most handsome men I have ever seen in real life. He looks like he's stepped, smoke curling at the roil around his perfectly creased pant hems, from the pages of a suit catalogue for fancy men. The kind of catalogue where half the Caucasian man models (1b) have a three-day growth that somehow looks like a forest of fallen trees beneath the glowing up-thrust of volcanic rock that is their luscious full red man-lips. Mmmm, purty. Anyway I candidly said in a group meeting 'hey, did you see that guy? How beautiful was he? He was like a suit-model!'. Then everyone hung shit on me—'Oooo, Mikey has man-love!' etc.—and said it made me sound suspect. Oh please my love of not-seeing-other-willies is well known. Fuck, I do not float that boat (though I support the right of all my boat-floating brothers—downcasts head, raises fist). But I am massively comfortable with my sexuality and I am more than able to look at an objectively beautiful man and say 'dude, you is but fully handsome, for shizzle'. Am I right? I am right. I more-often-right-than-not right. Homo Smugeness.

(1b) As a man with a broken body that has never worked quite right—curse you Darwin! (shakes flippers)—I actually pity male models. I do. What it is to be that way. Your handsomeness would actually hold you back in some ways, for example having to face adversity. Studies have shown the more handsome you are the less likely you are to go to jail. You also get promoted quicker. Oh, and if you're also tall, well, fucking hell, you have it sweet. You tall handsome male-modelling cock-bag. BUT you're likely to be dumber than me and so at least I have that. Boo-ya-ka-sha.

(2) It's no surprise I had a pretty morose set of later years in high school. I switched across to the state system from the rural-bully-academy I'd been forced to go to from middle primary through to junior high school and thus came across as a damaged person. A boy in the full bloom of liking girls but utterly fucked up in the head from being acutely sad courtesy of the bad place. Oh lord, even thirty years on I ache for the younger me. I think it's why I love my son so much. He's the younger me but not broken. Brimming with exuberant promise and unburdened by reduced physicality. I am hoping against hope he avoids some of the genetic-yuck I carry. Unfortunately I didn't have a social world to escape to that I felt comfortable in. I went to Christian Youth Group but no one really enjoyed or sought-out my company and anyway the entire exercise made me feel like I was a bad person for playing Dungeons and Dragons. And that is what I did have. I had D&D. AD&D to be precise, my taste was set for the Advanced kind and I looked down on the Basic set as being bequeathed with lesser mechanics. I still do! AD&D was something I could lose myself in. I ran entire parties through the classic series, playing them solo, outrageously fudging on rolls when they didn't go my way. Though I did actually TPK my high-level party in the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, when in the Drow City the party foolishly took on the temple and a combo of 20-odd mid-to-high level female Drow clerics stacked penalties against them with multiple castings of prayer all the while buffing their own abilities. AD&D in a way saved me. It was my life preserver. I will never, ever resile from it. As a fun crossover to many years later and now in the community thing I casually mentioned in a get-to-know-you exercise that I played D&D. A fellow but female community recent-stranger then piped up that she played too. She even goes to a monthly meet-and-greet coffee club thing where they sit around and talk nerd. She invited me along! Maybe I'll go!

Hilarious

Robot, my work-assigned rehab case manager, dropped past with some final paperwork to sign off. He said that apart from admin snafus (on my work's side) by and large it had all gone pretty smoothly.

I escorted him out and waved goodbye. I then went to scan my pass against the reader to let myself back into the building ... whereupon I slipped on the wet tiles. My right foot shot forward along the rain-slicked surface causing me to windmill my arms to gain balance and fortunately I managed not to fall over. I likely would have cracked my head or fallen onto the just-signed-off-as-healed-for-rehab-purposes leg  had I done so.

Seriously, for fuck's sake. I just literally waved goodbye to my rehab person and promptly nearly fucked my body up. Oh, why was there water there? Because there's a gap between the awning above the entry-way and the wall and thus rain drips down the wall and pools right under the pass reader. The very reader we all scan to get into the building.

So when I got back to my desk I promptly lodged a 'dangerous occurrence' OH&S form. 

Will anything happen with that? I seriously doubt it. But the important thing is at least I did my part. I will now add the rain-slicked entrance to the list of dodgy building things to report. Except of course if I do submit my uber report I may cop anger for doing so. Yay for being unpopular.

He's down with cyborg action

In Storyverse theBoy decided he had a machine that if you fell into it then the machine would turn you into a robot. On the outside that is; you'd still be you on the inside. Eventually half a dozen lead Storyverse and 'cross-over from TV' characters got turned into robots and they did battle with the robotically enhanced theBoy across a blasted urban battlescape. theBoy, naturally, won. Somewhat chillingly he decided to shoot an opponent in each foot then, if they tried to crawl away, he'd finish them off with a head shot. Still, you have to hand it to him, that is efficient.

I tried to sculpt the story into one of rebirth and redemption, with non-converted survivors planning to capture theBoy so as to remove the robot bits, but theBoy resisted it for a long time. He went looking for enemies to slay so I introduced an obstacle that the battery that powered his robot parts was running low and he would have to rest or even power down. The idea being that his friends would then attempt to grab him like cult deprogrammers and then de-borg him. Cunning eh?

So how did theBoy resolve this dilemma? Well he went to the bodies of two of his defeated robotized Storyverse opponents, Synybatbat the penguin and Humpty the short-sized tree-by-the-river-dweller, and removed their batteries. He then swapped out his current battery for one of theirs, theBoy actually miming slotting it into the side of his head, and pocketed the other as the spare. Then ... then he went battery-farming. Characters would fall into the conversion machine and the now cyborg version then spat out at the other end. And there, in hiding, would lie the robot theBoy. He would then shoot the new arrival in each foot and then once in the head. He then of course then took their battery.

That's my theBoy!

Don't worry, by the end of the session theBoy had tired of his robot rampage, shot all his robot bits off with his laser hand (1), then resurrected the other characters. They then had cake.

(1) I asked him how he removed the laser hand. He explained he got a portable remote laser and used that.

Barbary Dawn by Augustine Silkysnatch

The lanky pirate winced as the winsome slave girl daubed his just-stitched knife sliced flesh with honey.

'To prevent your wound from souring,' breathed the dusky-skinned beauty by way of explanation, her body trembling at tending to Captain Jyke Goldenrod, the most notorious of all the Anglo pirates that prowled like lone sharks the sea off the North African coast.

'I don't suppose you could daub a little here too?' he asked. He held up his manacled wrists, resting the tips of his fingers against his high cheekbone, his long flaxen hair shading his unshaven face, a single ice-blue eye peering out with mocking insolence. She could see on his wrists the skin had reddened then broken under the chaffing of the imprisoning metal bracelets.

'Of course, Captain Goldenrod, it would be my ... pleasure,' she said, lightly dipping her finger in her honey pot. She held up her honey-covered digit, letting a single drop ooze then dripple onto to Goldenrod's nipple, his Alexandrian Lighthouse of a man mammary tip stiffening under the impact of the goey tipple (1).

'My pleasure as well,' said Captain Goldenrod, his hand speeding out like a striking sea snake to grab her slender brown wrist, the pale white of his long muscular fingers standing out against the dark of her skin, the pirate imprisoning her with his clenched fist as surely as the manacles imprisoned himself.

The slave girl surrendered to Goldenrod. Hungrily, he drew her body to his and she gasped as he ran his hand beneath her...

TO BE CONTINUED (2)

(1) 29 synonyms to go!

(2) ?

Back on the trampgang

I just had my three calendar month anniversary of the TFCWM, AKA my hip operation. I'm still restricted in lifting things or how I bend but there's one restriction that has been lifted; I can now roll around on a trampoline! 

When I got home I snuck into the yard, de-pocketed my pocket crap (wallet, keys, thumb drive etc.) into my hat, kicked off my shoes and crawled in through the unzipped zipper gap and lay in bliss within the trampoline. Then theBoy saw I was there and came running out wearing nothing but his skull and crossbones undies. He was excited to have me back and I felt like the special guest star in a Spelling production. We just hung out and played until it was time to break away to have a cycle on the infamous TPC, an exercise bike owned by the beguiling Cass, a mysterious woman of the East known for her spiced wine of dung (1).

After the cycle, still at 5.8 kays in min. distance with my not being game enough to lift it, theBoy came dancing out of the house demanding more trampoline time and we played until tea. It's good to be back on the bouncy mesh mat!

(1) It's the dung that really makes it!

How delightful

As a 'still blogging' blogger, striving yet further across the desolate flat of ice even as I am but the last survivor of an ill-fated attempt to reach an arbitrary point on the Earth's surface, I enjoy looking upon my blog's feeble stats with all the intensity of that poor now-solo traversing Antarctic fuck has for the feeble flame he's using to heat up a lump of cold seal fat, a flame whose fuel is in fact also seal fat. 

I get excited by the tiniest variant in the stats, such as a new keyword string that has been directed to this blog, even if the total number of times that keyword string hit the blog is exactly one more above one. Hey when you feel like the day after the day after you ran for the first time in years (1) you take your joy bursts where you can.

Today's interesting find for a keyword string wot came here is as follows; balding motivational posters.

Alas these are merely stats and the reason for someone to be motivated enough to search for balding motivational posters is an unknown. Are they balding and seeking emotional support to deny their fate; 'I think the laser is working; I swear that's re-grow'? Do motivational posters with the balding present (2) tickle the searcher's fancy; 'HA! Suck it you balding fuck'? Are they determined to be bald naturally but with haste and stare in a mirror with a zen-like rage, face-reddening, willing their hair to fall and are seeking photos of legends who achieved such a fantastical follicle felling feat with which to be inspired by?

Whatever the reason for their intrusion upon my secret word garden via the string above then I pity them for their almost certain disappointment upon coming here. But I do wish them every future success in garnering their most precious desire (whispers) ... balding motivational posters...

(1) I am still wryly amused by the fact my sheer doggedness to walk every day without fail merely resulted in the final degradation of my left hip. Though I do have to admit the realisation I no longer have to feel less of a person for having a fucked-up body because it was fucked-up before I got it is an awesome silver lining. Kind of like a reverse I was too beautiful for this cruel world.

(2) We were at Woden on the weekend. Went for some reason, ah brunch and light shopping, and I ducked off to get a paper. There was a middle-aged woman, hair dyed red, having a chat with a presumed friend out the front of the newsagent. She had a receding hairline, which is rare on ladies and thus more eye-catching than when seen afflicting a dude in the same style-straits. Only the receding nature was greatly enhanced by her hair being pulled into a severe ponytail. I couldn't but help think it must have been a deliberate choice. Perhaps to draw the eye to her hair and away for the side-bulge on her hip that contains the humanoid-shape lump of the vestigial twin that her body absorbed when in utero? Perhaps indeed

I can now blame theBoy for things I did

Missed the rim? Blame theBoy. Ate the biscuits? theBoy. Dropped that rind of toast? Clearly him, not me. Though really I shouldn't waste this power on trivialities. I should save it for a big one like 'Dead hooker? I think Noodles had it last...'

80k+?!

You suck... (1)

(1) Fist-bump; super proud (big smile)

A Larson come to life!

Gary Larson is an awesome cartoonist. He has that ability to deliver funny in a few mere strokes of a pen and some words. It's a rare gift. 

A classic is his nature says 'do not touch' cartoon. Since knowledge of it is required for the rest of this to make sense have a click then come back. Have you looked? Well, have you? I hope you did. 

Anyway, the dude with the bazooka. So we're in Woden, it's fucking packed and parking is a nightmare on the way out. As we wander along the crowded thoroughfares I take in the rich visual imagery of this vibrant display of damp humanity. 

The one that intrigued me the most was an older man. Portly, glasses, probably late 40s. He had on a shirt that was a little too-tight for his heavier frame. So the tightness lightly warped the image of the AK-47 upon the black cloth, etched in white print and with assorted Cyrillic characters partially-artfully scraped away from the rest of the shirt.

Okay, fair enough. It's some-kind of try-hard Jeans company effort to remain edgy or it's his (the wearer's) commentary on gun ownership; I'm thinking like pro-gun given the placement of the weapon and the aggressive display of the Russified font. 

Either way the shirt's by itself was not what filled me with worry but rather it being in combination with the head-wear prominently displayed upon the dude's sparsely-clad head.

It was a propeller beanie. Yes, that's right, a propeller beanie. It even had a badge of some kind pinned to the side of the aviation themed scalp vessel. To top it off he was sitting next to what I can only presume was his ancient mother and probably the only thing keeping him from his final lock and load.

Needless to say I kept him well in my eye-line until I got to cover lest his mother kark it.